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Sen. Dorgan faces powerful opponent on drug reimportation

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) faces a powerful opponent if he
brings up drug reimportation as an amendment to the food safety bill.

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the House sponsor of the food
safety bill, told The Hill that he’s dead-set against the amendment, which he
claims could derail the whole food safety effort.

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“I wonder if he is trying to kill the bill,” Dingell said of
Dorgan. “He ought to belong to a body that knows how to legislate, or he ought
to introduce his own bill and get it through the Senate and stay off this
bill.”

Adding to the charged politics is the widespread assumption
that the Obama administration, which has made food safety a priority, may
intervene behind the scenes against the amendment. The measure would allow the
importation of drugs that are sold in countries such as Canada for much cheaper
than they are in the U.S.

Dorgan tells The Hill the food safety bill is probably his
last, best chance to get the drug provision passed before he retires from
Congress at the end of this session.

The measure has broad support in both chambers – it got 51
votes in the Senate last year, including 23 Republicans - and Dorgan said he
would ask the White House to support the measure when the food bill hits the
Senate floor.

Powerful people may oppose the measure, Dorgan acknowledged,
but “there are a couple of powerful reasons to do it,” including the fact that
it would make life-saving drugs more affordable and would save the federal
government $100 billion over 10 years according to the Congressional Budget
Office.

“I can’t control what John Dingell thinks or feels about
this,” he said.

Dingell has been frustrated with the Senate’s slow pace in
taking up the food safety measure, and he is a longtime opponent of drug
reimportation.

“It will allow this country to be flooded with unsafe,
counterfeit drugs, drugs that will not do what they should, drugs that are
unsafe, drugs that will kill the American people,” he said in 2003 of a similar
measure. “I tell you, it is a bad bill.”

That’s also the position of the drug industry, which says
reimportation is unsafe because of widespread counterfeiting and the fact that
even legitimate foreign drugs are often not approved by federal regulators. The
industry adds that the measure is especially ill-timed since many Americans are
gaining access to affordable healthcare thanks to the new health reform law.

In a statement, Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the
trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said: “It is
unfortunate that unsafe prescription drug importation schemes are being pushed
at a time when tens of millions of Americans are gaining access to affordable
healthcare coverage, services and treatments through the new health care reform
law.”

Dorgan said the safety of the reimported drugs would be
ensured under his amendment and that even drugs sold domestically would be
subject to higher safety standards than they are now.

The drug reimportation amendment failed 51 to 48, short of
the 60 votes needed to proceed to a final vote, when Dorgan tried to attach it
to the healthcare reform legislation last December. The White House was reported
to have been against the amendment to help to preserve the drug industry’s
support of health reform.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Officials with the Health and Human Services Department and
the Food and Drug Administration, when asked if the Obama administration would
try to scuttle the amendment to the food safety bill, said “no comment.”